A top university has issued a trigger warning to students that beloved children’s classics such as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone contain “outdated attitudes”.
The University of Glasgow attached the warning to an undergraduate module on British Children’s Literature.
The advisory informs students the course “explores outdated attitudes, abuse, and language in children’s texts”, according to the Daily Mail.
The course explores texts from a range of genres from 1850, including JK Rowling’s debut wizard novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
The first instalment in the Harry Potter series introduces readers to the 11-year-old wizard as he begins his adventures at the magical boarding school of Hogwarts.
The novel, published in 1997, is one of the bestselling books of all time.
The university defended its use of “content advisories”, which it said “have an important role to play in an educational setting”.
A spokesman for the university, which placed 12th in the UK in this year’s global university league table, said: “Content advisories in a university setting help students prepare for critical discussion.
The university has defended its use of ‘content advisories’
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“Unlike children reading for pleasure, undergraduates analyse these texts in depth, which can highlight outdated attitudes around childhood, race or gender.
“We believe that content advisories have an important role to play in an educational setting, allowing lecturers and students to engage in a positive learning and teaching experience on issues across the whole range of human experience and history.
“They also ensure we can engage with course content in as sensitive and respectful a way as possible.”
However, the decision has sparked criticism from critics.
The first Harry Potter novel is one of the bestselling books of all time
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Novelist Dame Margaret Drabble told the Mail: “Poor, poor students! Exposing themselves at their age to Lewis Carroll and E. Nesbit and all those ghastly, outdated stories glorifying public school! How they must suffer!”
Author and historian Jeremy Black added “all such trigger warnings do” is serve as a “form of confirmation bias for the follies of the present”.
Other popular children’s authors have faced criticism in recent years for themes in their books, including Enid Blyton.
The Famous Five and Magic Faraway Tree writer had her work revised after being slammed as racist and xenophobic in her books.
It comes just days after the National Library of Scotland issued a formal apology to Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Susan Dalgety after wrongly excluding their gender-critical publication from a public exhibition.
Sir Drummond Bone, who chairs the institution, acknowledged the decision to ban The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht had been a mistake.
The book chronicles the grassroots feminist movement that opposed Nicola Sturgeon’s gender self-identification legislation and features contributions from prominent figures, including JK Rowling.
Sir Drummond wrote to the editors apologising on behalf of the board “for our initial decision not to exhibit the book … and for our reaction to the Times article on this decision”.